If I Only Had the Heart

Kylie wasn’t the type of girl to get super depressed over a guy dumping her. Of course this was different; Matt was different. She was sitting in her bed, eating some junk food, when her cell phone went off. She was tempted to ignore it. Ignoring things was easier then dealing with them.

But, this time, it was her cousin. She felt like she had to answer it, so she did. “Hello?” she said into the phone, trying to sound normal.

“Hey! Guess what fabulous news I have!”

Kylie shrugged, and then realized Jordan couldn’t see her. “I have no clue.”

“I’m moving to Baltimore!”

Kylie’s face paled. Of fucking course she is, she thought bitterly to herself. “What?” she asked Jordan, trying to sound happily confused.

“Yeah! It’s really cheap to buy a place there, and I figured why not, you know? You’re probably going to be out here a lot more too, so it’s a win win!” her cousin exclaimed. Meanwhile, Kylie wanted to either cry, or start throwing things. The universe liked to play cruel tricks on her apparently. “Isn’t that great?” Jordan asked her cousin.

Kylie sighed. “Yeah, really… great.” Kind of like my life right now, she thought to herself. Sarcasm always had been her greatest defense mechanism. “So, when?”

“I don’t know… sometime soon. Why? Are you going to be out there with the boy toy anytime soon?”

Kylie was getting closer and closer to crying. “No, actually. We broke up.”

She heard Jordan gasp first. Then, her cousin started cursing Matt out. “That fucker! I warned him…” she grumbled to herself.

“Yeah, he sucks. Whatever. I’m getting over it. Or trying to. I don’t know.” The blonde groaned. She hated this, so much.

“I know, sweetie. It’s okay. Guys suck; who says we need them anyways? Want me to come out for another visit?”

Kylie sighed again. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Thanks though.” The two talked for a few more minutes before hanging up. Kylie sighed and decided she should get out of bed. She made no motion to get up though, and instead, ate some more junk food.

***

He dialed her number, praying she’d answer and not ignore him altogether. Some sort of higher power must have taken pity on him, because she answered as the machine was picking up. “Hello?”

He flinched at the sadness that was almost dripping from her every word. Of course, she had a good reason to be sad and angry. The guy she was in love with had left her without so much as a “goodbye” even; so yeah, she was really upset. “Listen,” he told her, trying to grab her attention, “I have a proposition to offer you.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “Go on.”

“I have a friend, a producer, out in…” Squire trailed off. He didn’t want to make his plan too obvious. “In New York City, and he needs an assistant. His bailed on him the other day, and the band is scheduled to come in today.” Squire gave Kylie a minute to process this. “He knows how awesome you are, thanks to me, and he asked if you were free for a couple of weeks or so. So, what do you think?”

Kylie thought for a minute, and then agreed. “When do I get out of here?”

Squire smiled. Mission accomplished, he thought to himself. To Kylie he said, “How does in three days sound to you?”

“Sounds perfect. Just order me a ticket and I’m out of here.”

Squire proceeded to tell her that he would buy the ticket, all she’d have to do would be pack a bag and head to the airport where her ticket would be waiting for her at the end of the week. After she got all the necessary information from Squire, including the hotel where she would be staying at, where the studio was located, and the name of the rental company where she would be picking up her car at the airport in New Jersey, Kylie hung up. She was relieved to be leaving, but she was also kind of numb about everything that had happened. It had only been two days though, so she shrugged the feeling off and went to start packing.

***

The next few days consisted of Kylie being busy. She bought some new clothes, packed her bags, and soon she was on her way. She arrived at the airport at a way too early hour, and after five and a half hours split between waiting and a plane ride, Kylie was finally feeling the plane’s tires hit the run way. She got off of the plane after stretching and walked towards baggage claim with her carry on in her left hand and her purse over her right shoulder. She dragged herself to get her luggage, and then dragged her luggage outside of the airport where she immediately started shivering. Her body had yet to adjust to the cold New Jersey weather.

She wrapped her tan pea coat tighter around herself and started her walk towards the car rental place, where a car was waiting to be picked up in her name. She hurried along, the sound of her black converse smacking the pavement the only thing she was concentrating on. She got to the car rental place and got everything squared away. After receiving the keys for a silver Jeep Liberty, Kylie went off in search of her rental car.

After successfully locating her car, she climbed in and took off. There was a GPS device stuck to the windshield, so she turned it on and plugged the address for the hotel she was staying at in. She thought it was odd that Squire had booked her a hotel outside of the city, but assumed it was probably cheaper and didn’t think anything of it. As she stared out the windshield on her way to the hotel, tiny snow flakes were falling delicately and not melting, thanks to the blast of heat hitting the glass. Kylie smiled. She had never experienced snow before. Right now, it was the only thing making her happy because, as surprising as it was, she was fine being in NYC when it was way too cold outside, unlike almost everyone else around her. She was sort of enjoying the colder weather.

After a half hour, she pulled up to a fairly nice hotel. Kylie parked her car, grabbed her luggage out of the backseat, and climbed out, not wasting any time getting inside. She walked up to the front desk, checked in, and found out she was on the fifth floor which happened to be the top floor. She grinned; she loved getting top floor in hotels. Kylie rolled her luggage over to the elevator and climbed in, hitting the “five” button to take her to the top floor. The elevator dinged five times, and then the doors slid open. She walked out of the elevator and walked slowly down the hallway, not paying attention to where she was going but rather staring at the doors and their numbers, trying to find 516. She heard a door up ahead open up and out of curiosity, tore her gaze away from the gold numbers to see who was intruding on her quiet time. She almost fell to the ground in a heap of tears of anger and sadness at what, or rather who, she saw.

Standing not fifteen feet in front of her was the object of her affection up until five days ago. He still didn’t notice she was there. She stopped in her tracks, her jaw dropped, waiting for him to realize she was standing right there.

He shut his room door, turned and started walking, pulling a suitcase behind him. He looked up and it was like time stopped. She was right there, standing right in front of him. Neither of them moved nor said anything. They just stood there, watching each other; glaring in Kylie’s case. It wasn’t until Matt said, “Kylie?” that everything came crashing down.

It was like a switch had been turned on and all the anger and resentment she had been feeling was bubbling up inside her. Matt was lucky she didn’t lunge at him right then and there. But, she was a girl so instead of lunging, her emotions came back and nothing was clear anymore. Tears burned her eyes and she tried to blink them away, but to no avail. All the tears that had built up in the past days were now falling down her face at full force.

Suddenly, it was like Matt had been slapped. His protective side came out full force at the sight of Kylie crying and he raced over to her side to try and comfort her. She stopped crying long enough to say, “Fuck you.”

When she tried to hurry by him, Matt grabbed her arm lightly. “Ky, hold on,” he said. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to find out what she was doing there, but most of all he just wanted to explain even if he wasn’t sure how to.

She glared at him. “If you don’t let go of me right now, I won’t hesitate to punch you right in the goddamn face.”

Matt didn’t move a muscle, so Kylie pushed by him and continued down to her room. She finally got to her door, opened it with the electronic key, and walked inside, slamming the door behind her. Then she fell back against said door and promptly started crying again. She should have thought this spur of the moment trip through. Fuck me for not thinking more clearly, she thought to herself.

When she finally calmed down, she stood up from her position in front of the door and walked over to the bathroom. She splashed some water on her face and after patting it dry with a towel, walked back out to the bed. She sat on the edge of it and took out her cell phone. She dialed Squire’s number and waited for him to answer. When he did, all she said was, “What the fuck?”

“Did you get to the hotel safely?”

Kylie sighed. “You know damn well I did; you also knew they’d be here, you scheming son of a bitch.” She fell back on the bed and rubbed her left temple. She could feel a headache coming on.

“I didn’t know they’d be in your hotel, no. But we can discuss this later. You have to get your ass to the studio.” After Squire gave her the address, the two hung up. Kylie dug through her suitcase, grabbed a UCLA sweatshirt and her purse along with the rental car keys, and headed out the door.